We see both potential and reality in “Song for Black Sabbath’s Second North American Tour”.

Track: “Song for Black Sabbath’s Second North American Tour”
Album: Unreleased

John Darnielle has said he wrote “Song for Black Sabbath’s Second North American Tour” in tribute to the idea that Ozzy Osbourne worked in a slaughterhouse and seemed to be headed for a difficult life. I admittedly don’t know much more than the average person about the personal life of Ozzy, really, but there are enough Mountain Goats songs about him that it’s pretty easy to fill in the gaps.

I don’t know if this is the best song the Goats wrote about him, but it’s certainly the one I’ve thought about the most. Part of what divides the “unreleased” songs from the album cuts is that sometimes the less polished ones leave you feeling a little less shaken than the stuff that got all the polish. Many of them are brief and feel unfinished, even if what is there can sometimes be a wondrous thing. “Song for Black Sabbath’s Second North American Tour” is the reverse in that this story is fully told. We see what might have been and then we see what actually was. The song is the fully narrative, but the fact that this narrative exists at all is the tale.